Daniel Conrad

Faroe Islands, San Antonio

Daily Brief Managing Editor at Courthouse News Service

Editor and Photographer at Freelance

doing journalism @courthousenews; teaching journalism @trinity_u; he & him; tryna figure out ‘quid est dulce et decorum.’

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Articles

Diluted votes in DC?

1 week ago | courthousenews.com | Daniel Conrad

WASHINGTON — The D.C. Circuit reversed a Washington federal court’s decision to dismiss some citizens’ challenge to a law allowing non-citizens to vote in city elections. Because the law expands the electorate and therefore risks diluting each citizens’ votes in local elections, the suing citizens have plausibly pleaded a “particularized injury to their vote.”
Life insurance policy revived at Fifth Circuit

1 week ago | courthousenews.com | Daniel Conrad

NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit reversed a Mississippi federal court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of an insurer that informed a widower that it canceled his wife’s life insurance policy but never notified the family’s insurance agent.
Pro-life espionage

1 month ago | courthousenews.com | Daniel Conrad

NEW ORLEANS, La. — The Fifth Circuit partially sided with a pro-life clinic network that challenged the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which terminated its contract with the network. A disgruntled former employee had sent confidential information to the state commission and was later arrested over the security breach.
Eleanor can’t be copyrighted

1 month ago | courthousenews.com | Daniel Conrad

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit upheld the trial court’s finding concerning the ownership of “the Eleanor Mustang,” which is actually a collection of pony cars popularized in the film “Gone in 60 Seconds.” The foundational issue of law is whether the car is a character that can be copyrighted; the appellate district says no, as it does not have “conceptual qualities” nor “consistent traits” and is “not especially distinctive.”
Alibaba’s Miffy bootlegs

1 month ago | courthousenews.com | Daniel Conrad

CHICAGO — A federal court in Chicago denied Alibaba’s motion to modify a temporary restraining order in this trademark infringement lawsuit brought by the owner of Miffy, a rabbit character originating in Dutch picture books, against more than 100 Alibaba sellers offer counterfeit or bootleg Miffy merchandise online. The court lifts its requirement on Alibaba, which is not a defendant, to freeze the assets in the sellers’ accounts.
Albuquerque police consent decree

1 month ago | courthousenews.com | Daniel Conrad

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Department of Justice and Albuquerque, New Mexico, filed a joint motion in federal court to terminate a federal consent decree that had the federal government overseeing the Albuquerque Police Department for the last decade. The decree was put in place in response to the police force’s high rate of unconstitutional excessive force incidents.
Abercrombie & Alzheimer’s

1 month ago | courthousenews.com | Daniel Conrad

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — Mike Jeffries, the former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO who was indicted for allegedly inducing young men to perform sex acts at his parties ostensibly in exchange for modeling opportunities, has been found incompetent to stand trial. Prosecutors did not challenge the motion to find him incompetent, though Jeffries will be held in custodial hospitalization for up to four months to determine if it’s possible that he might regain capacity in the foreseeable future.
Drive-by eyewitness upsets trial

1 month ago | courthousenews.com | Daniel Conrad

SANTA FE — The New Mexico Supreme Court reversed two men’s murder convictions and ordered a new trial connected to a drive-by shooting. The trial court erred in excluding the testimony of an eyewitness, who would have said he saw another person commit the crime, “for the sole reason that the defense had not specifically listed his name and address on the defense witness list.” The exclusion deprived the defendants of their right to defend themselves.
‘Captain Save-A-Hoe’

Mar 21, 2025 | courthousenews.com | Daniel Conrad

PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit upheld the sex trafficking conviction and sentence of a man who identified himself as “Captain Save-A-Hoe” to FBI agents who were investigating him for picking up two runaway teen girls and forcing them to have sex with him and others for money and shelter. He voluntarily went to a police to “clear his name” by writing a false statement, and recorded messages intended as blackmail in case the kids he had trafficked didn't “keep quiet” to law enforcement.
Jury instruction cost kids’ fire damage award

Mar 21, 2025 | courthousenews.com | Daniel Conrad

DENVER — A Colorado jury ruled in favor of a family whose two children were injured during a townhouse fire — their mother pushed them out of a second-story window before jumping to safety herself — but state’s appellate court reversed the judgment. The trial court erred by instructing the jury on an earlier version of the fire safety ordinance than the one that was in effect at the time the children were injured.